Ugg - Non US customers beware - faulty items and bad customer service

I am in Australia and thought purchasing shoes from a website www.uggaustralia.co (not the .com site) would be safe and that the free shipping on returns would be honoured.I didn't notice the site had redirected to www.ugg.com.

until I was checking out and noticed the $75 freight charge. I then checked the website further and misunderstood "Exchange will be shipped via UPS Ground at no cost to the customer" to mean free shipping on returns. so proceeded and purchased two pair of shoes and they were delivered all the way from the USA very quickly. I loved the shoes and was eager to wear them straight away.

Trying out the sneaker pair first, after 1 hour of wearing them I noticed stitching coming undone on top of the shoe. So this is when I noticed my return label had postage required if out of US. So I went back to the website and reread the Warranty Info and realised my error. The free shipping is on the exchange pair if they accept the fault.

I thought I will email them and let them know my predicament and that I didn't want to pay for freight until they acknowledged and confirmed that if the product was accepted as faulty they would refund me the cost of shipping the shoe back to them. I gave them all my details and the item details in this email. Unfortunately the response was along the lines of "We may be able to start International warranty claim for you if you feel your product is experiencing a defect, it is a year or less old .....fill out the below required information so we can begin your claim" They hadn't even read my email properly! I replied giving them the required information again and told them I was dissappointed with their scripted response and failure to be sincere with their customer service.

Different person responded saying they had updated their International warranty policy and I needed to go online and complete a return form. I replied that I had already done that previously and still hadn't received any acknowledgment via that avenue, but if they couldn't be bothered reading my emails and offering customer service then yes, I will go back online, but to let everyone know International Buyers Beware. I honestly thought I would not find any other complaints regarding this site . How wrong I was and am now kicking myself for not doing my normal research on a company before purchasing online.

Must add that the packaging and the boxes the shoes come in are of the highest quality.Such a shame the company can't give the same standard of service and product.